Judith looked her amazement. It seemed almost too good to be true. Miss Ashwell smiled and her cheeks grew pinker than ever.
"I'm especially interested in Italian work, Judy—because I had a friend out there during the war. He sent me these snapshots. I'll show them to you now and you may take the magazine articles with you. The Red Cross did such magnificent work there that I don't wonder Miss Kingston chose that as one of your subjects."
"Oh, Miss Ashwell, it's just like the manna in the wilderness," gasped Judith,—"I mean I'm so grateful," she explained incoherently, "although the Jews were not always properly grateful, were they? But I am. I didn't see how I could hunt up all those references with all I have to do."
Miss Ashwell showed her the pictures, but Judith's mind was divided between interest at the skilful ways in which difficulties of transit in the mountains had been overcome and interest in Miss Ashwell. Was it possible that Miss Ashwell was interested in a soldier-man the way girls were? Of course, she wasn't so very old, perhaps twenty-two, and as Judith ran off with her treasure she kept saying to herself, "Wouldn't it be funny—he looks awfully nice in the snaps—she's a perfect dear, anyway, and I'll get at that Current Events prep. right away."
Next day Miss Marlowe handed back the "Jessica" essays to her Five A class in English composition. Five A looked glum as they read their marks and the somewhat caustic comments written in their exercise books. Judith flushed as she read: "Neatly and carefully written, Judith, but hardly interesting. You were not asked to give a résumé of the play, but a character sketch of Jessica. What do you know about Jessica now that you didn't know before you wrote your essay? How have you enlarged your knowledge of human nature?"
How, indeed? Judith felt distinctly aggrieved. What impossibly hard things Miss Marlowe expected them to do! She had worked hard over that essay and had looked for a little praise, but instead here was Miss Marlowe thumping the desk and telling them they never used their brains. Five A sat at attention. Miss Marlowe, indignant, was apt to be interesting, but no one desired to be the luckless offender against whom her Irish wit might be directed.
She gave them a lively two minutes on the foolishness of not using the brains they had, and then came down to the subject in hand.
"You didn't try to understand Jessica; you knew that her conduct was unfilial, to say the least, and don't imagine that I am forgetting the wrong things she did, or that I want you to approve of her. I don't, but I do want you to try to understand. That's just the reason why you were assigned this lesson. Only one of you made the effort to re-create Shylock's home. Read your essay, Florence, please."
The class looked surprised as Florence, white with shyness, began to read, falteringly at first and then more convincingly. Every one, with the exception perhaps of Judith, was surprised at the excellence of the essay. Florence Newman, that quiet, shy, stiff, little thing! They had expected that Joyce or Phyllis or Judith, or even Frances, would be held up to them as models, but not Florence.
"Run down to the common room, Nancy. You're nearest the door; and bring me Lamb's 'Life and Letters,' a big red book lying on my table." And then, turning to the class, "Now, never mind about Jessica, though I hope you see the difference between your way of approach and Florence's, but remember this, it's far, far easier to criticize, to judge, and to condemn, than it is to sympathize and to understand; it's the little people of the world who do the judging; it's the big people who do the understanding.